An Empirical Study On The Effects Of Process Writing Approach On English Writing Anxiety Of High School Students

This study aims to investigate the influences of process writing approach on the English writing anxiety of senior high school students.The high anxiety in English writing of high school students directly affects the improvement of their English writing achievements.Some researchers employed the Length Approach and peer-editing to alleviate the learners’ writing anxiety,and certain results have been achieved.However,concerning the characteristics of high school English learners,these methods have their own defects.Moreover,the previous researches did not focus on the relationship between the changes of students’ English writing anxiety and their writing achievements.Therefore,this study is designed to investigate the English writing anxiety and writing achievements of senior high school students under process writing approach.Based on Cooperative Learning and Affective Filter Hypothesis,process writing approach can promote the completion of the writing tasks by affecting students’ emotional state under cooperative learning.This study aims to explore the following questions: 1)What dimensions can English writing anxiety of senior high school students be divided into,and what is the general level of their English writing anxiety? 2)What isthe influence of process writing approach on the English writing anxiety of senior high school students? 3)What is the relationship between the changes of students’ English writing anxiety and their writing achievements?To conduct this study,two paralleled classes in the second grade of a senior high school in Liuyang,Hunan province are selected.The experiment lasts eight weeks.The product writing approach is adopted in control class,whereas the process writing approach is applied in the experimental class.This study uses the Chinese version of Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory(SLWAI)and senior high school English writing tests to obtain the experimental data.Students’ responses to questionnaires and their test scores were processed by using SPSS22.0.The experimental results show that:(1)The current English writing anxiety of senior high school students is at the medium level,and their English writing anxiety can be divided into Classroom Instruction Anxiety,Cognitive Anxiety,Avoidance Behavior and Lack of Confidence.(2)Process writing approach can effectively reduce the overall writing anxiety,Classroom Instruction Anxiety,Cognitive Anxiety,Avoidance Behavior and Lack of Confidence of senior high school students in English writing.(3)The changes of students’ writing anxiety is negatively correlated with their writing achievements.Process writingapproach stimulates high school students’ enthusiasm for writing by alleviating their anxiety of English writing,especially avoidance behavior and further enhances language output training,which is conducive to guide the development of students’ writing skills,and improves their writing achievements.While exploring the current level of anxiety in English writing in high school students,this study further confirms that process writing approach is a feasible teaching method to alleviate the anxiety of English writing in high school students.Thus,process writing approach is of importance in promoting the development of English writing teaching in senior high school.However,due to the limited time,small sample size and other uncontrollable factors,there are still some drawbacks,requiring further multi-centered and large sample researches.